Word: alie
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Ali, there was the prospect of ending his career as a defeated fighter, no longer the champion he had dreamed of being since he was twelve. And there was the challenge of bringing his body back into condition to fight-really fight, not rope-a-dope-a powerful champion eleven years his junior. Leon Spinks, on the other hand, was overwhelmed by the new status he had so frantically sought. The privations of a ghetto background had suddenly been replaced by $3.75 million purses. The gap-toothed young street fighter was, overnight, the biggest man in sports. There were cars...
While a deadly determined Ali holed up for intensive training, Spinks caroused and skipped workouts, counting on the strength of youth to carry him through. Ali relied instead on conditioning and the canniness of age, all the skills learned in 58 professional fights. He stepped into the New Orleans ring with a look of fierce concentration unseen since his third and final bout with Joe Frazier...
Spinks, defending the title in only his ninth professional fight, was obviously ill equipped to run Ali to ground. The former champion's talent may have dimmed, but he was still a superbly conditioned athlete. Six months ago Ali could not escape Spinks and had folded his hands over his face, leaned on the ropes and allowed Spinks to bash away. Now Ali backpedaled on resilient legs and, more important, he used his hands. The famous Ali jab lacked the sting of old, but it held Spinks at bay. Each time the boxers closed on one another, Ali threw...
After the eleventh round, Ali took stock. "Am I winning?" he asked his seconds. Back came the reply: "You're way ahead." And Trainer Angelo Dundee added, "Just sock him-sock him!" In Spinks' corner, one of his handlers frantically urged: "You've got to fight your fight. You're fighting his fight...
That, of course, had been Ali's strategy all along. When the fight had ended, Spinks simply and articulately summed up the reasons for the loss of a crown after just 212 days: "Maybe my heart wasn't in it because there are a lot of things on my mind, problems the heavyweight championship brought me that I didn't know how to deal with. But who knows? I don't know myself...